Being fabulous
by renrenren3
Summary: A short foray into Buckingham's character and how fabulous he is.


It's not easy, being fabulous. That's what people don't get about Buckingham. All those people who dismiss him as a well-dressed poof, they'll never understand that it takes him a lot of effort to always look effortlessly flawless. Having impeccable style and a fashionable hairdo and colour coordinating his hat and his boots - those things take time. So much time, in fact, that one might say that being fabulous is Buckingham's true job. Prancing around all Europe as King James's Prime Minister and envoy, well, that's more of a perk for being the snappiest dressed courtier.

Buckingham has more than earned his title of most fashionable man in England. Nay, he might very well be _the_ most fashionable man in all of Europe, which is to say the most fashionable man in all of the world, and rightly so. He's so up to date and fashion forward that if he turned back he'd see all the good gentlemen of the court, scrambling to keep up with him. Buckingham treats them with due condescension, because he likes to think of himself as a gentle soul, the kind of good Samaritan who takes pity on the less fortunate and the sartorially challenged.

Among those less fortunate souls is King Louis XIII. Buckingham has _no_ idea how France could have survived for so long, when it is ruled by a sovereign who thinks that _green_ is a good colour for Summer 1623. Really, Buckingham has no idea. Also because he doesn't read all the reports about French politics that his underlings and paper-pushers like to inflict on him. Usually he just skims through them while he's waiting for the coiffeur to finish doing his hair - those reports are boring anyway, just pages and pages of numbers and military jargon without any pictures at all.

Anyway, military reports don't matter because Buckingham has _airships_. Really cool airships, if he might say so himself. They've been upgraded since his last visit to France, so that he might travel in style. He gave up on the black-and-blood colour scheme and switched to softer autumn tones: his fleet now has golden hulls and russet sails. The gilding alone cost almost as much as the entire fleet, but what's the point of being ridiculously rich if one doesn't flaunt it around? There were some complaints from his admirals, something about camouflage and lack thereof for huge gold-and-red ships, but Buckingham can't be bothered with such minutiae. He cares about the big picture, and the big picture is the painting that he's just commissioned to old Rubens, of him standing on the deck of his flagship and leading his men to victory against the French.

There is no doubt in Buckingham's mind that they will win against the French. It doesn't matter that the enemy has more foot soldiers, or that they can close the ports and keep England's navy at bay. Buckingham is going to fly right over the battlements, straight to Paris, to King Louis and to his poor fashion sense. Even if in the last few months Richelieu somehow managed to build a few airships of his own, France will be powerless in the face of Buckingham's own three dozen airships. Even better, three dozen _fabulous_ airships, that's he would add if he was explaining his plan. And then he'd twirl his moustache, which is fabulous too.

Planning too far ahead in the future isn't Buckingham's style, unless it concerns his wardrobe - lilac will be huge next spring, he thinks, and he also needs to order some Spanish lace. He can't be bothered with political schemes, preferring to jump from one diabolical masterplan to the next, going wherever his whim and his frankly unreliable ally take him. But this time it's a given that England will triumph, so Buckingham is already thinking about what he'll do with the spoils of war. He has decided to be gracious with King Louis. It's not the king's fault that he was born without the charm, style and elegance that grace Buckingham's every step.

Buckingham thinks that he might keep the little king around, because it's good to be next to someone who admires and envies him so unabashedly. It's almost endearing, the way King Louis is rendered speechless whenever Buckingham is around and then pretends that he's not staring in awe. Maybe, after dethroning him, Buckingham will give the former king of France a few tips about garters and curling irons. Cardinal Richelieu, on the other hand, has to go. The man has worn the same shade of red for the past twenty years, and Buckingham simply won't stand for that. Also, he's dangerously competent. Buckingham likes a challenge, but he very much prefers trumping his enemies and going home early for a nice cup of jasmine tea from China. He doesn't like tea, but he likes fashion, and he's got a feeling that the Far East is going to become fashionable very soon.

He will have to do something about the musketeers too, they're simply too dangerous to have as enemies. That's a shame, because Buckingham likes their style. They're almost charming, in a roguish backwater way. If circumstances were different, Buckingham would gladly pay for them to get some new clothes: the ones that they have right now are so threadbare that they make Buckingham weep. Not literally, because then his face powder would run, but inside he's weeping for all that wasted potential.

It would be just perfect to have the musketeers turned into his own personal guards. They could have fabulous new matching outfits - he's thinking a striped rainbow cloak, though he would need to take care that they didn't overshadow him. Not that he could ever find himself in danger of being overshadowed by anyone, but one can never be too cautious. No rainbow cloaks. Just something simple, perhaps in lilac, which would match the clothes that he himself would wear while striding through the salons of Versailles when he takes possession of the king's residence. He'd like to turn it into his summer home, London's air and the humidity from the Thames can do terrible things to a man's wardrobe.

There are still some snags in this plan. Milady's alliance is uncertain at best, and her price is Athos's head. He's still in England because restyling all of his fleet took longer than anticipated. Jasmine tea really sucks. He's not really sure about lilac, come to think of it, turquoise is promising too, and he really needs to do something about Spanish lace. But all that doesn't matter because Buckingham is still more fabulous than everyone else, and at the end of the day that's what matters, really.


End file.
